Three new South African-made smartphones to be launched in 2020

[Willie Trombone]

You struggle to read?

Feelings.
I still don't see any connection.

 

[RedViking]

Actually that just confirms what I suggested. You definitely woke up on the wrong side this morning. Just saying.

Relax. You made a good investment. Mara should be fine.

 

[Willie Trombone]

Nothing wrong with Mediatek. Even my 5 year old Mediatek phone is getting custom rom updates as well.

It depends. Sony M5 was a disaster. Overheats badly.

 

[NeonNinja]

Ehh, R3k for the Mara X?
View attachment 904886
Wondering what CPU are they offering?
Most likely a MediaTek CPU.
MediaTek is useless to me.
Been a Snapdragon fan from day one.

That is freaking overpriced.

 

[Willie Trombone]

Relax. You made a good investment. Mara should be fine.

Coffee dude. Go have some.

 

[Willie Trombone]

That is freaking overpriced.

Well at least it's not a R50k Samsung folding tablet LMAO

 

[RedViking]

Coffee dude. Go have some.

MY FREAKING COFFEE IS FINISHED!!!!

 

[Willie Trombone]

MY FREAKING COFFEE IS FINISHED!!!!

OK, it's all making sense
But seriously, sorry dude!

 

[RedViking]

Goverment would do well to invest into bringing all the Xiaomi phones to SA.

 

[Willie Trombone]

Goverment would do well to invest into bringing all the Xiaomi phones to SA.

I reckon South Africans would do better to stop feeding the beast. Cellphones and mobile providers are a curse.

 

[backstreetboy]

It depends. Sony M5 was a disaster. Overheats badly.

Well yes that chip came out in 2015... Could always just disable a few of the cores.

 

[Willie Trombone]

On the Mediatek subject

MediaTek Bug Actively Exploited, Affects Millions of Android Devices

An exploit published by a developer is easy to use and has already been used to build malicious apps that gain root access on Android devices.

threatpost.com

Critical MediaTek rootkit affecting millions of Android devices has been out in the open for months

A critical flaw in MediaTek processors went unpatched in devices due to OEM neglect. Google hopes the March 2020 Android Security Bulletin will fix this.

www.xda-developers.com

 

[Gravedigger]

Just to throw this here, the Mara Z has a Snapdragon 435, announced in 2016, but still manufactured.
Runs on Android One, has 32GB storage and 3GB RAM.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 SoC - Benchmarks and Specs

Benchmarks, information, and specifications for the Qualcomm Snapdragon 435 processor (CPU).

www.notebookcheck.net

Heck, my Redmi5 was cheaper, 3GB RAM, 32GB of storage and a better Snapdragon CPU. Cost me R2k.
(Most of Xiaomi's costs are subsidized by ads, hence the cheaper price...)

 

[Willie Trombone]

Most of Xiaomi's costs are subsidized by ads, hence the cheaper price...

OK, glad I know that now LMAO. No thank you.
Probably subsidised by the spying Chinese government as well.

 

[Gravedigger]

OK, glad I know that now LMAO. No thank you.
Probably subsidised by the spying Chinese government as well.

First thing I did was to load a custom ROM on it...
So no Chinese spying anymore...

 

[backstreetboy]

On the Mediatek subject

MediaTek Bug Actively Exploited, Affects Millions of Android Devices

An exploit published by a developer is easy to use and has already been used to build malicious apps that gain root access on Android devices.

threatpost.com

Critical MediaTek rootkit affecting millions of Android devices has been out in the open for months

A critical flaw in MediaTek processors went unpatched in devices due to OEM neglect. Google hopes the March 2020 Android Security Bulletin will fix this.

www.xda-developers.com

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

There’s no word on when Google and phone makers will incorporate fix from Qualcomm.

arstechnica.com

 

[Willie Trombone]

Snapdragon chip flaws put >1 billion Android phones at risk of data theft

There’s no word on when Google and phone makers will incorporate fix from Qualcomm.

arstechnica.com

Yep
Android is pretty sucky lately security wise.

 

[Willie Trombone]

First thing I did was to load a custom ROM on it...
So no Chinese spying anymore...

orly. Where did you get it from? Have you reviewed the code?
Besides, spying also happens at lower levels - this stuff is often baked in to the hardware / SOC in places that aren't user programmable.

 

[Gravedigger]

orly. Where did you get it from? Have you reviewed the code?
Besides, spying also happens at lower levels - this stuff is often baked in to the hardware / SOC in places that aren't user programmable.

I got the ROM from XDA, updated recently to LineageOS 17.
The thing is used only for dev testing (my apps), it is not connected to my network, so it's OK.
Also, I made a isolated AP, so that I can play around with some stuffs when I need to be connected to the Internet, I recently flashed the alternative Google Services (NanoDroid), so lets see how that goes...

 

[emperornemesis]

Nothing wrong with Mediatek. Even my 5 year old Mediatek phone is getting custom rom updates as well.

My 8 year old Nvidia Tegra tablet also gets custom updates, they key word being custom, in other words, no longer supported by the OEM. Mediatek has always been the underdog, and with good reason, they basically build a ARM core the exact way ARM designs it, with little optimization. The same goes for Rockchip. The only companies really optimizing are Apple, Broadcom, Qualcom, ST and NXP, with Broadcom, ST and NXP relegated to non-phone applications. It's sad to say that again, the majority of Chinese companies only manufacture copies. The other sad thing to note is how badly optimizations and instruction sets are sometimes implemented if implemented at all.